Puzzles and Riddles

If my choice of name did not inform you already, I am a fan of puzzles and riddles. Thus, disregarding whether you want to join or not, I propose a game: I will post a riddle or logic puzzle, people then answer until the correct answer is given, then the person that answered correctly poses his or her own riddle. Simple enough for you? I do not care.

My Puzzle:

A salarian, was slain. The asari claims the human is guilty. The human says the quarian did it. The turian swears he didn't kill the salarian. The quarian says the human is lying. If only one of these speaks the truth, who killed the salarian?

I feel slightly like my le'ku have tied themselves in a knot, but after much frowning and making random hand gestures that apparently my subconscious thinks helps with 'if-then' thought processes, I'm going to accuse the turian.

So you'll let us know if/when someone gets it? I enjoy puzzles but I'm not great at them, and I don't want to cheat by looking it up...

By elimination I'll say the turian too.

Only one is telling the truth...

Asari accuses Human
Human accuses Quarian
Quarian says Human lies
Turian claims innocent

One of Human and Quarian is telling the truth; they cannot both be lying, for Quarian's statement refutes that of Human's.

If Asari is telling the truth ("the human did it"), Quarian must also be telling the truth ("the human lies") - this is not possible. This does not work in reverse, however, as lying = / = guilty.
Therefore, Asari lies.

Human claims Quarian did it, and Quarian claims Human is lying. If Human is telling the truth, that means everyone else is lying - because of the turian's claim, this is impossible. Therefore, human is lying.

Because human is lying, Quarian is telling the truth -- and, by process of elimination, the turian murdered the salarian.
Well, either the turian or that terrorist group back in 2188.

In conclusion:
Human OR Quarian truth
Human OR Asari truth
IF Asari, THEN Quarian truth
Human truth OR Turian guilty
-> Human LIE
-> Quarian TRUTH
-> Asari LIE
-> Turian LIE, GUILTY

EDIT: Second possibility - they worked together.

-> Human TRUTH
-> Quarian LIE, GUILTY
-> Asari LIE
-> Turian LIE, GUILTY

With such a diverse gathering as this, I wouldn't be surprised.

Apologies for not responding in a timely manner. The Turian did, indeed kill the salarian. Because asari_promiscuity correctly answered first, she will ask the next riddle.

TadpoleTech's thought processes are much more straightforward than mine. :) I actually ignored the asari, and figured the human and quarian were one of those classic lie/truth pairs, so that invariably 'used up' the one available truth in the lot. Ergo, turian.

Okay, my turn then... drat, I'm not good at riddles. Okay this is a simple one so it probably won't last long, but it'll get me out of the way so we can get on with the more challenging stuff.

"A mariner sails into port on Seerday, stays two days, and leaves on Seerday."

(For anyone working off a different calendar, the Thessian week is nine days long.)

The ship is named the Seerday~!

Well there you go, just as well I've got charms other than posing puzzles. :) Your turn then.

(One I've always liked is the "As I journeyed to Serrice Fair...", but since they used it in that movie last year everyone knows the answer right away.)

Cool, cool.

Assume there are approximately 7,000,000 (7 million) people on Omega. What would you estimate to be the result, if you multiplied together the number of fingers on every Omegan person's left-hand? (For the purposes of this question, thumbs count as fingers.) At least try for the order of magnitude, yeah?

Assuming equal demographics for all races:

((5 asari)+(5 drell)+(4 elcor)+(5 humans)+(3 salarian)+(3 turian)+(3 volus)+(5 batarian)+(3 krogan)+(3 quarian)+(3 vorcha))/(11 species )= 3.818181818181818 fingers per person on average.

If you want to count the left tentacles of hanar, then it's 3.75 fingers per person on average.

Thus 7*10^6 people * 3.818181818181818 fingers per person - 583333.3333333333 fingerless hanar = 26143939.39393939 fingers. Or 26250000 fingers if you count hanar tentacles.

EDIT: I misread that question. I feel dumb now.

Zero, if you justly assume that there is at least one individual who has no fingers on his his left-hand and know that the product of any multiplication that has a zero as one of its terms is always zero, you can deduce that the total would also be zero.

Daughterofa- I knew that had to be a lateral thinking one, I just completely overlooked where the catch was. Well played Dippy.

You're right. It's Omega. There's at least one fingerless person and that means the product is zero.

Your turn.

Thinking of riddles are more difficult than solving them, but here goes.

You are stranded on an island where a Cerberus experiment forces people to always tell tell the truth or always lie. As you wander around you meet two people, Alex and Frank.

Frank says: "We are both Liars"

Who is who?

Assuming one's truthful and one's lying, then Frank is the liar.

That is right. Your turn.

If I've got my head wrapped around this one properly, I don't think you even have to assume that. Frank cannot be telling the truth, because if he were he'd be a liar, but he'd just have told the truth, universe explodes (I'm given to understand that's what happens in these sorts of situations; too much speculative fiction, no doubt). So Frank is a liar. If Alex is also a liar, then they're both liars - i.e. Frank told the truth, giant black holes etc. So Frank must be a liar and Alex must be truthful... is that right? (If it is, Neila called it first anyway; I haven't got any good riddles still regardless. Need to set the VI to doing some searching. (Edit: saved!))

Or there's the lateral thinking answer: given that it's a Cerberus experiment, while you're standing around working that out they're turning into husks; run you fool.

Heard this one from a human a few years ago...

A man is walking through a jungle with three croquet balls. He comes across a rickety wooden bridge that spans a vast abyss with sharp pointy rocks at the bottom. By the bridge is a sign that reads: "Warning! The capacity of this bridge is exactly 210 pounds(95 kg). If even one pound more crosses, the bridge will break and you will fall to your doom."

The man (including the clothes he's wearing and the supplies he's carrying) weighs 205 pounds (93 kg). Each croquet ball weighs two pounds (1 kg) apiece. And yet, upon reading this sign, he simply continued onward and crossed the bridge safely. He did not stop to remove any supplies or clothing beforehand, wasn't a biotic, and he did not throw the croquet balls to the other side. How was he able to make it across?

Okay so 210 capacity versus 205+(3x2)=211 total, so one croquet ball... that's a heavy ball, I'm guessing this isn't a flying-ball sport... or if it is, there's safety equipment... The first two are okay, so if you juggle- no because you're imparting upward thrust, that translates like the birds in an aircar thing (doesn't it?) so... hrm.

...When you say "the supplies he's carrying," does that already include the croquet balls?

No. He's at 205 of the 210 with everything BUT the balls. You're very close already. This wont last nearly as long as I'd hoped.